


La Susurra

by Serai



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hermit, ghost.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 09:09:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13163769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serai/pseuds/Serai
Summary: "The past is always right there on the side of us." -- Eugene Hutz





	La Susurra

.  
She wanders the earth now, a sad shade, discarded by all her lovers. To the living she no longer exists, to the undead she no longer matters, and to the dead… well, they have departed, gone onward as she is unable, trapped now by betrayal and her own choice, betrayed in her turn. She seeks him, her savior, crossing oceans of time to find that lone dark flame.

"Save me," she whispers.

He looks up, the breeze sliding past his ear like the far-distant song of a wild thing. The twilight is crisp and cold as he kneels next to the fire, stirring it up anew with a dry branch. After a long moment, he turns back to the fire's crackling and pulls the metal pot off the flame, pours a cup of bitter coffee. Again the whisper, felt more than heard, and he whips his head around, trying to catch it.

_Save me._

The feel of it like something soft breathing on the skin at his collar, and a scent he cannot catch sets off a memory he cannot allow. Whatever it was is long gone, faded back into the darkness of the past, down paths he will not tread no matter who calls him. His sins consumed everything decades ago. Only silence now, and the desert.

Darkness descends even as he stares into the distance, straining to see. In the last moment between day and night, when everything is invisible but the air itself, a ripple of woven dampness flutters it like a shroud. For just a moment he can feel the gaze on him, a sense of emptiness more real than presence, between him and the unseen mountains. 

The whisper again and a silent wail, longing spirals the air around him, and he shuts his eyes. His temples harden as he sets his jaw, and with one movement he thrusts his hand into the fire, picks up a live branch and clutches it, the pain ripping through his arm. Burn-smell roils his nostrils and he grits his teeth another three heartbeats, then lets the ember go, gasping between his teeth as he clutches his wrist with his good hand. He bows his head, trembling, the tears dripping from his clenched eyes, fighting to keep his mind on the pain and away from the breeze moving gently around him, a vanished embrace, a sigh from a love long past saving.

The moon is a thin crescent. He lets the coffee go cold and then pours it over the burn before binding it up. That night, he dreams of thunderstorms.

.


End file.
